IN Brief:
- City of York Council has signed a ten-year housing delivery partnership with Cityheart and Willmott Dixon.
- The initial pipeline comprises approximately 300 proposed affordable homes across five council-owned sites.
- Site business cases, planning decisions and funding assessments will determine the schemes that reach construction.
City of York Council has signed a ten-year strategic delivery partnership with Cityheart and Willmott Dixon to bring forward council housing and regeneration sites. The initial programme envisages approximately 300 new homes, primarily on five locations owned by the council. The partnership provides a development and construction team for future schemes, but each site remains subject to its own business case, planning requirements and further council decisions.
The first five locations are Ordnance Lane off Fulford Road, Willow House on Walmgate, Lowfield Green in Acomb, Castle Mills on Piccadilly and the former Manor School site on Boroughbridge Road. Their circumstances differ, so design and procurement will not necessarily proceed on a single shared timetable. Grouping them within a long-term programme allows feasibility, design and construction expertise to be retained as individual projects move through approval, rather than making a separate partner appointment for each new development opportunity.
York says it intends the first homes to be affordable to rent, buy and run, with a commitment to social rent and shared ownership. Council leader Claire Douglas has linked the programme to an ambition for 100% affordable council housing. That ambition is distinct from an approved tenure schedule for each plot, and the approximately 300 homes are an expectation for the first phase rather than an unconditional construction commitment. Lower operational energy demand is also part of the council’s stated approach to affordability.
The signed arrangement puts development and construction expertise alongside the council’s ownership and decision-making functions. Cityheart brings experience of regeneration and site development, while Willmott Dixon supplies construction delivery capability. The partners can progress technical studies, applications and feasibility work, but the council says business cases for each site will be brought to its Executive. Neither the ten-year term nor the appointment itself removes the need for those public decisions or for statutory permissions.
Site-specific engineering will determine whether and how the proposed homes can be delivered. Ordnance Lane and the other council holdings are not interchangeable building plots: each must be investigated for access, utilities, drainage, adjacent occupiers and any demolition or ground treatment needed before construction. The council has not published a common construction specification, final home numbers for each location or a completed enabling works programme. It would therefore be premature to assign confirmed methods or dates to all five sites.
Preparation is already under way at the former Willow House site, according to the council’s October update. That preparatory activity is not evidence that the full 300-home programme is on site. As the first individual business cases progress, the partners will have to establish realistic budgets, develop designs, obtain any outstanding consents and decide which works can be procured and delivered. The council has not confirmed a programme-wide construction start or completion date.
The partnership also has a remit beyond the initial council holdings. York wants to examine larger regeneration opportunities involving land held by multiple public bodies and other owners, where access, infrastructure and ownership arrangements can complicate the early stages of development. A long-term development team may help maintain continuity while these questions are resolved. It does not give the partners control of land that has not been brought into a scheme or guarantee that an identified regeneration site will proceed.
The agreement includes a commitment to prepare a long-term social value plan covering apprenticeships, employment and opportunities for the local economy. These commitments sit alongside the council’s education and skills priorities. No numerical apprenticeship target or confirmed spend with local suppliers has been supplied for this programme, so the plan remains an obligation to develop rather than a set of completed outcomes.
The council’s announcement does not specify a total contract value, annual construction volume or guaranteed workload. Each site’s viability will be tested as costs, funding, design and approval requirements are established. The first phase of approximately 300 homes should therefore be understood as a development pipeline, not a fixed order to construct 300 dwellings under one contract. The number ultimately delivered may change as individual business cases are decided.
Council officers and the delivery partners can now advance detailed proposals for the five initial sites, beginning with the preparatory activity already described at Willow House. Executive consideration of the individual schemes will establish which designs and budgets proceed. The next substantive construction milestones will be site approvals and appointments, followed by work starting on particular plots, rather than the signing of the partnership alone.
